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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297265">Just The Two Of Us (We Can Make It If We Try)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanButKind/pseuds/MeanButKind'>MeanButKind</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Vampire Diaries (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A bit of self-discovery for our favorite pair, Angels and Demons, Angst, Bonnie is having a tough time, Damon is an ass, Depressed Bonnie, F/M, Hopeless!Bonnie, Kai is a trickster, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism, Respectively, Well - Freeform, and oh so devilish, he respects Bonnie though, in his own way, just resigned, she's not hopeless</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:47:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27297265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanButKind/pseuds/MeanButKind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick glimpse into the heads of the dynamic duo as they process their fear, pain, and isolation, and of course, each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bonnie Bennett/Malachai "Kai" Parker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Butterfly</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place when Kai and Bonnie are in the cave after Bonnie sends her magic away. Emphasis on Kai/ Kai's POV</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kai is having a lot of thoughts, which is strange because shouldn't he be angrier? After all his best shot at escaping this hell pit just disappeared courtesy of the witch in front of him. Yet, he feels more than anger, but what? And why? </p><p>Just an idea that came to me because I was bored and rewatching old episodes. Set in season 6. Hope you enjoy!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He laughed when he realized what she'd done, not because he found it amusing, though the irony wasn't lost on him; not because all he could do was laugh to keep from crying, and not even because she'd somehow managed to trick him.</p><p>No, he laughed because he had been a <em>fool</em>.</p><p>He's been cooped up in this wide-open cage for spent so long, away from others. He hasn't seen or heard anyone in ages. Naturally, he'd been desperate for interaction, even a psychopath like him needed stimulation. So, when he first realized he wasn't alone he fought hard to resist the urge to run to them, make friends, play nice. Authenticity and integrity went hand in hand so Kai knew that to be true to himself he had to lie in wait- stalk this duo, find out what made them <em>tick</em>.</p><hr/><p>Find out he did.</p><p>After diligent watching, he felt confident in the idea he knew them almost better than they knew themselves. With each moment he watched he saw their longing, their despair; how it nestled deep inside them and bloomed again each morning they woke up still stuck. He knew how Damon used alcohol as a suppressant, he could see how he cared about Bonnie, but couldn't bring himself to tell her- often choosing to moan about his girlfriend Elaine instead.</p><p>He knew how Bonnie clung to the idea this wasn't her end, that she wouldn't go out like this. How she held so tightly to the idea this had been her Grandmother's doing. She ignored Damon's digging remarks and told him to not give up, but when she thought no one could see she cried fat, ugly, thick tears and held herself on the bathroom floor.</p><p>Pathetic.</p><p>He knew her so well, so when she sent her magic away he laughed, not at what she had done with it, but <em>where</em> she put it. He wasn't even laughing at her, to be honest, he was laughing at himself, it was so comical he had to chuckle. In that instant, he could have fallen to the floor in a fit of wild cackles, but this neither the time nor the place. She was prattling on about something.</p><p>He took the time to watch her as she spoke, he wasn't keen on what she had to say but he wanted to see her as she said it. He took in the way her hair swayed, her wide stance, the way her mouth moved and eyebrows pulled in at the center. As much as he stalked she was different in person. From afar she was this stubborn, amusing, pathetic, useless witch. In-person, however, she was something else entirely. It's why he always got so close to her, even when she was hurting him. Especially then.</p><p>For most of Kai's life, people had always cowered away from him. His peers, his neighbors, his own family. Even before the murders they shrank and receded when he got too close.</p><p>Not Bonnie though.</p><p>He hadn't been lying when he said he wanted to feel her hand against his chest, it had been so long since he had that- contact. After she learned the truth she didn't change, still crowded him, and stood up for herself.</p><p>Of course, Damon was no shrinking violet either, but that was didn't count. Damon was a vampire who couldn't be hurt so easily, Bonnie was different. All he had to do was touch her and pain ebbed through her body. Despite this, she got in his face, challenged him, violated him. Ha! This girl was more than he could have imagined. More than he could have <em>hoped</em> for, more than he dared to. She gave as good as she got and, oh, when she got she took it so well. He was ripping her magic out and she pretended to fall against him only to jam a pen into his neck. Violent <strong><em>and</em></strong> creative, he could get used to that. While falling to the floor he pressed his hand to the weeping gash and remembered feeling so impressed before things faded out, he resolved to let her know when he was reborn in a few hours.</p><hr/><p>He woke up and she was gone, he couldn't exactly express his gratitude if she wasn't around.</p><p>He could always wait, but time was running out, soon the eclipse would be starting and she'd be eagerly running away from him back to her ungrateful friends. Maybe to find Damon and hopefully to put a stake through his heart, though he doubted it. So, before he searched for her he wanted to do something to let her know he cared, let her know that although he was a murderous-child-killer he had developed a soft spot for her. When he passed her room and saw Miss Cuddles it just popped into his head that maybe she would like it.</p><p>Fast forward to the present moment, in the belly of the cave, Bonnie rambling about why her magic was MIA. Then it hit him, like a million stabbing pinpricks it hit him.</p><p>The bear.</p><p>The bear <em>he</em> had gotten for her.</p><p>He thought about someone other than himself for the first time in 18 years, perhaps his entire life, and this was the thanks he got. It tickled him. He just told her he wanted to be like her and it was the truth. He bandaged her up, got her little bear for her, told her she was inspiring, paid her compliments, and what did she repay him with? A dirty trick. Was he angry? Of course, but deeper than that he was <em>excited</em>. She had been a positive influence and she was rubbing off on him, but better than that, he'd been an influence on her too.</p><p>In a matter of days, he'd managed to rub off on her in the best possible way. She'd already killed him twice in as many days. She hadn't even gone to bed crying like she did all those nights he crept around watching her from the darkness outside her window. Whether she cared to notice or not he'd gotten into her head and turned her sadness to wrath. What a delightful transformation: Little sweet Bonnie was all grown up and murderous! This was her chrysalis! Oh, this was going to be great, Kai was riveted. For once, in his miserable sentence, he was looking <em>forward</em> to something.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Tailor Made (Between the Devil and Me)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"This hell isn't yours, Damon. It's mine" </p><p>Because Damon kept repeating it, said it over and over and over again, calling it his own personal hell. </p><p>This had unintended implications for Bonnie. Well, the implications were intended on his part, meant to cut her, let her know he'd rather spend his time with anyone else, but she hadn't meant to let them get to her.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was originally uploaded to ff.net a few years back.  Just a *fun* little peek into Bonnie's head during 1994.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She thought she was being saved when the clues started popping up, she imagined this mysterious shadow was an angel sent to save her. She had spent so many nights crying secretly in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in her bed, wherever Damon wasn't. She never expected to be so lonely in someone else's company.</p><p>But Damon hated her, and he kept making that clear.</p><p>She harbored a newfound darkness. A kind of self-loathing that had never reared its head at her before, but now it roared deep in her gut. It pricked her skin with its claws and knocked against the backs of her teeth. It stung her throat like acid and threatened to choke her just as viscously.</p><p>There were times she wished to be free of this prison.</p><p>By <em>any</em> means.</p><p>Times when he was lamenting her existence, she wished he had torn her throat out and left her to bleed on the dirty ground all that time ago. And still, there were times when she wanted to show him her tears, let him know he got to her, let him know that for a martyr, like her, being called useless was the cruelest jest possible.</p><p>She didn't though.</p><p>Maybe he needed this, needed to be mean and nasty to ignore the pain he felt inside. She could be a punching bag, she could suffer. That was a skill of hers, suffering and silence, usually simultaneously. Ever the sacrifice, always the fool.</p>
<hr/><p>So, she was overcome with silent pleading when the signs began to appear. She thanked Grams and God for the angel she had been sent and prayed it would reveal itself soon. The angel would take pity on Bonnie and lift her away; she didn't much care if Damon came along or not. She spoke of hope so dangerously, as though her world depended on it; her world and her sanity-and they did- the both of them.</p><p>Imagine her despair when Satan himself turned out to be their companion.</p><p>In a blaze of fire, he revealed his form- armed and ready to strike. This demon mocked her as viscously as Damon had; never had she felt so forsaken.</p><p> </p><p>"The <em>useless</em> one is here."</p><p> </p><p>"What are you going to do? <em>Fail</em> at me?"</p><p> </p><p>"I'm <em>embarrassed</em> for you."</p><p>God did not send her an angel, but a toy. He was not the kind of toy you played with though, he was like some sick gangly yo-yo and she was caught up in the spin. It felt as though she was being dangled back and forth and up and down on a loose string at a sickening speed.</p>
<hr/><p>He threatened them then claimed it was for a greater purpose, he tricked her into using magic, then revealed it was a ploy. He even got close to her, made her think maybe he really was that angel, then delivered the cruelest twist of all, that he was a murderer, he was beyond redemption. He lead them outside and told them plainly, this was his hell.</p><p><em>Malachai</em>, even his name filled her mouth like a curse. She was certain now; he was no angel. He had been one before, at some long-passed point, but he was cast out.</p><p>Much like Lucifer himself, he was banished for his sin and left here to rot, but so was she. It did something to her psyche to know she deserved a fate shared with Satan, something cruel and irreversible. She was staring it down- an eternity of damnation.</p><p>What had she done for this to be her fate?</p><p>She prayed, went to church, saved her friends countless times, sacrificed her <em>life</em> for them, led herself to the slaughter. She was the lamb! How had she thrown herself on the alter and ended up cast aside? Wasn't the offering <em>sacred</em>? When witches burned didn't the smoke always <em>rise?</em></p>
<hr/><p>She felt weighed down, like an anchor, but she had played that part already. Maybe this was her fate. She was tethered to this rotted ground and nothing could pull her up, no ascendant or otherwise.</p><p>By the time they got to the cave she was resigned, she knew it was too late, but even now she prayed for forgiveness.</p><p>When Kai told them, this was his hell she had misunderstood. She took him to mean this was his realm of suffering, but it wasn't. This was his realm of torture; she would come to know that soon enough. So, she sent Damon home; this was not a place for him.</p><p>She held no fear of consequence, she would let herself dance with the devil, if she had to throw herself onto that blade again then so be it. As Damon was engulfed by brilliant white light and pulled skyward, toward her God and not his, she knew with complete and utter certainty, this tailor-made hell was not for him nor for Kai; this hell was decidedly hers.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Like I said, short and sweet.  These were actually separate fics originally, but they're so short I figured I should combine them.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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